


Together Through Time

by lunarblazes



Category: TWRP | Tupper Ware Remix Party (Band)
Genre: TWRP BB 2020, at least for a while, big ups to the mods of this big bang!, everyone worked so hard, go read everyone else's fics and like their art and mixes!, i'll put those in the chapter notes they appear in, my artist and mixer, so o7 to you my friends, thank you dragonpuff17 and pollitoesbonito, there will be minor drug mentions and minor violence, this is a damn long thing i did, this is probably gonna be my last twrp fic, you guys are amazingly poggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27672818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarblazes/pseuds/lunarblazes
Summary: The Zone is not a place Havve Hogan ever wanted to set foot into again, and yet here he is. Doctor Sung’s impulsive and frankly very terrible sense of morals have dragged the band into another life-and-death situation, and now Havve is responsible for getting them out of this mess. On the Zone, memories are strange things, and their pasts may come back to haunt the group as they’re challenged by a strange little alien with a lot of magic and a mission. One that may not leave his friends alive.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), all of twrp are friends
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3
Collections: TWRP Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WOOO POG! TWRP FIC HOURS! go follow my epic artist dragonpuff17 and my awesome mixer pollitoesbonito i love them both so much! check the bb tumblr for the art and mix link, they're both so great.
> 
> enjoy the fic!

Sung was used to weird dreams. They came as a side effect to being devilishly handsome and charming… but probably more so because of his futuresight and empathy powers. Strange dreams were entirely expected for him, and not in a normal “oh no my dog has grown human teeth and is trying to throw me a birthday party for Christmas” kind of dream-logic way. Moreso of the “this dream is strange because I can see my friends and we’re all dying in very excruciating detail” variety. Most of these dreams about his friends didn’t come true, which Sung was eternally grateful for (he didn’t have a strong desire to drown in oil, after all), but they did often find themselves in situations where they  _ almost  _ came true (such as the time where Meouch had managed to piss off a cave full of oil monsters by asking them if they worked at an Auto Zone and they’d all had to run), which was unsettling for him, to say the least. His core kept them from becoming too cumbersome, which is why he didn’t have visions while awake much anymore, but at night his subconscious was free to roam the galaxy. Whether he wanted it to or not.

Right now, he knew he was sound asleep in his room on their ship, comfortably cocooned in a nest of blankets. His eyes didn’t see it that way. In his sleeping mind, they were projecting a desert, red as the setting sun and endless as the seas of space. He knew the place well, so well that seeing it once more caused him to grimace. This planet would show up every so often in his dreams, but nothing would ever happen. Sung contemplated sadly if this was because of the collection of lost feelings and terror hanging around the atmosphere of the planet, staining the sand as noticeably as blood. You wouldn’t need to be an empath to sense that, he was sure of it. Being in the Zone with Havve so long ago had given him a lifetime of experience with the barren place, and his visions had only increased his familiarity. 

He sat down, ready to wait it out until sunrise. His visions rarely let him wake up when he chose, which made him a very heavy sleeper. The only option was to simply wait for as long as the dream needed to progress. It  _ would  _ end after a while— it always did. Sung was usually not a patient person in the slightest, but somehow when he was asleep, he found it very easy to just sit and do nothing. It definitely didn’t stop him from tapping on everything around him while he was awake, or from bouncing on his heels, or pacing the length of the ship until Meouch had to hiss at him to stop, or from messing with his synth until the sound coaxed Phobos out of his room, bleary-eyed and shivering. 

He really wasn’t the best shipmate.

Sung eyed the sky above him. The Zone’s atmosphere didn’t show many stars. The thought of the planet being surrounded by sadness came to mind again as he stared up at the smooth purple sky. Signs of life were very rare here, usually nonexistent. If anything appeared on the planet that it perceived as alive, it was quickly trapped and set into stasis in the sand for the planet to feed on. Sung was pretty sure that his dream-self didn’t count as alive, so it left him alone. 

A sudden crack from across the sands caught Sung’s eyes as a large cloud of sediment rained into the air. The grains quickly settled back into the desert, and the air became silent again. But something had happened to cause that, and Sung had to find out what it was. The desert posed no threat to his subconscious, but it might have harmed whatever had crashed into the planet, and he had a duty to help.

An intense feeling of dejà vu settled in the back of Sung’s mind. This felt a lot like when he’d found Havve’s ship, bent and twisted, already half buried in the sand. The loud sound and the spray of red pigment were all too familiar as he raced towards where he’d heard the crack. Whatever had caused the explosion had left an impressive mountain of sand, which made it pretty easy to pinpoint. He carefully stepped around the crash site, trying to get a closer look. 

As he turned to look, his core grew warm, pulsing in his chest. Sung had just enough time to mutter a quick curse before the emotions hit him full force. There was a  _ lot  _ of panic, some desperate sadness, a sprinkling of terror— oh, right, and the pain. The aching pain settled in his limbs, spreading out from his chest, heavy and tight. Nothing out of the usual for something that had just crashed into the surface of a planet. That didn’t make it feel any more pleasant, but at least it let him know there was something alive in the wreckage. The only thing more blinding than the pain was the sheer and utter  _ panic  _ he was picking up. It was like a wild animal cornered in a trap, desperately struggling to do something but ultimately useless. It was disorienting, and not even because of the feeling itself. No, it was disorienting because something about that panic was screaming HELP ME, and Sung had a very clear feeling that it was talking to  _ him.  _ Like he was meant to see this, or someone of his abilities was. He couldn't do anything about that information right now, however, being non-corporeal in his dreams; he’d have to tell the others about it when he woke up. That was the good part about being able to see the future: you could prevent it, if you could figure out where to look. 

Sung had made it his top priority to learn as much as he could about the galaxies that visited him in his dreams for that exact purpose, but even with that knowledge, sometimes he was wrong, or he failed. 

The dream slowed, tunneling into a void of black and gray and shining nothingness before dissolving into something new. Sung mentally raised an eyebrow, confused. Usually that little tunnel of void was where he’d wake up— nothing had ever really appeared to change that, not in billions and billions of years. Until whatever this was apparently decided that it was “Sung has the weirdest of all weird dreams” night tonight, and the vision shifted into a different perspective. One of someone else.

This absolutely  _ baffled _ Sung. He’d  _ never  _ lost control of his dreams in his adult life. That was something his species were almost immediately trained to do from birth, like walking or talking— just a fundamental part of who they were. He’d never entered someone else’s body, or not been able to move in a dream, for that matter, both of which seemed to be affecting him right now. 

A first person view of a ship’s cockpit melted into view, showing the endless expanse of space outside of the glass viewing port. The planets hovering in orbit seemed vaguely familiar to Sung, he figured he could probably place them if given a little time, but of course, the dream didn’t give him that courtesy. The ship began speeding away from the planets, stars blurring into lines of light and color as he (or whoever he was right now) left them all behind. A sense of bubbling joy and excitement that wasn’t entirely his own filled his lungs, boiling to the surface and stretching his face into a grin. The ship eventually stopped— Sung had no idea how long the flight had been, dream time was weird even under normal circumstances— and a beautiful blue planet appeared in its path. It almost reminded Sung of Earth, if Earth was more vibrantly blue and all the land was swallowed under it. 

The dream skipped forward a little, which was a strange sensation. Like a framerate glitch in a video game: one second you’re standing on a mountain, the next you’ve fallen into a river. Now the person he was observing seemed to have landed on the blue planet, which was surprisingly not covered in ocean, but rather in some kind of mysterious plant life. Small mushroom-like plants (fungi?) lined the ground, rubbing off on his hands and clothes. They radiated light. Again, a sense of unbridled excitement and anticipation filled his chest. He had no idea what that was for, but it probably meant that the person he was supposed to be was 1) very excited and 2) had arrived at their desired destination.

Good for them, he thought.

The dream skipped again, this time to a dark place. Those light bearing plants didn’t seem to be growing here, Sung observed wisely, given the fact that it was dark. Soon enough, though, the darkness gave way to colors, bright lights dancing along the top of the empty cavern that he now found himself in. The gentle movement of the colors reminded him of his Earth friends’ description of what they called the Northern Lights, but something told him this wasn’t caused by debris in the blue planet’s magnetic field. Namely the fact that these lights were dancing in a cavern, and for debris to cause the light flaring they would have to hit the atmosphere of the planet, which was not in a cave. 

The person moved forward, setting their hand on the wall of the cavern. They walked to the center of the room, running their hand along the wall all the while. Once they’d reached the center, their feelings of excitement gave way to painfully intense nervousness. Sung didn’t need to be able to read emotions to know something was about to happen, and he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to be here when it did. Too many times he’d felt that feeling only to have something horrible happen. Sure, it could also give way to something  _ good,  _ but he wasn’t about to test his luck. He always failed that test anyway.

The colors in the ceiling began to collect, floating down from the ceiling and swirling around the person. It felt a little like a higher stakes version of a friend’s new dog trying to see if you were nice, sniffing out whether you were the friend or foe. Tense and definitely a little threatening, but promise of a great reward. Sung could feel his heart beating in his throat, his shoulders tensing. This went on for a little while before the tight ball of emotions in his chest just… vanished. They didn’t unravel, Sung was used to that, they just disappeared. This was more suspicious to him than anything else in this crazy dream, but it was definitely more than enough to catch his attention by the scruff of its neck.

The dream tunneled in a flash of blue and green light, and Sung woke up to the dark walls of his room. 

“God _ dammit _ ,” he muttered, sitting up slowly. 

“Looks like someone slept in, huh?”




Havve was used to Sung being impossible to wake up. It had once happened just before they were attacked by a crew of space pirates looking for a fight, which in retrospect was utterly hilarious. At the time, he hadn’t been laughing. Meouch and Phobos had been absolutely panicking and he’d had to manage the ship on his own while they desperately tried to determine if he was dead. But hey, he’d gotten them out in time! Nobody had died, and he was very grateful for the additions to the teasing Sung list he had going. 

So when Sung refused to wake up at a normal time, the crew figured they were in for some fun news when he got up. Havve had felt the change in Sung’s core energy as he slipped out of the dream, which was interesting. This vision felt much longer than most by a significant margin. Usually Sung’s visions would end and he would sleep normally for a little while, but this one took up the whole time. At least he was up before Meouch, who slept just as heavily but didn’t have the excuse of magical prophecy powers to aid him in his power napping endeavors. 

Havve stepped outside of Sung’s door, punching in the code and letting it slide open gently. “Looks like someone slept in, huh?”

Sung appeared to have woken seconds before Havve had stepped in. He was rubbing his eyes, his core still glowing from the effort of the dream’s energy. “Am I up before Meouch, at least?”

“You know it.”

Sung grinned. “Perfect.”

A few minutes later, Sung was out in the cockpit, where Phobos was running morning checkups on the ship’s systems. Havve nodded a little greeting to the Corvidae as he worked, and got a small smile and a salute in return. 

“Taking bets on when our good commander will wake up,” Sung announced, laughing slightly with a half eaten protein bar in his hand. He was already tapping on the table as he sat down. “My money’s on another… twenty minutes.”

Phobos’ shoulders shook a bit and he turned on his heel, away from the diagnostics. “That’s cheating, Sung! You know exactly when he’ll wake up, don’t you,” he signed teasingly, chirping twice for good measure.

Sung shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Sung, you give him too much credit,” Havve intoned, “I say at least another hour.”

Phobos chirped brightly in a bout of laughter. “That’s more like it,” he signed.

Sung snorted. “We’ll see.”

Twenty minutes later, Phobos was leaning down in his chair, pouting, and Havve was handing over 5 dollars. Sung smiled smugly. “You’d think you would have learned by now, guys…”

“Oh, shut up, Marty McFly,” Phobos signed, still pouting.

Meouch sat down at the little meeting table they had. He’d grabbed some breakfast from the fridge, but he looked half dead. “Mmff… whuzzup, guys?”

“Nothing,” Havve grumbled. He knew that Sung couldn’t foresee what would happen with little events like these, but he could guess, and  _ man  _ he was good at guessing. “Sung, did you have a dream last night?”

Sung perked up at Havve’s words. “Oh! Yeah!”

Phobos did his best to look uninterested, no doubt still holding a grudge from the bet. Havve knew Phobos would still listen. He was utterly fascinated by Sung’s futuresight, and to an extent, they all were. It was weird and mysterious and just so fucking bizarre that it was intriguing just by nature. Try your hardest not to look interested if someone walks into your room, says they can see the future, and then predicts multiple life threatening situations for you and your friends. Most of Sung’s visions didn’t come true, so they weren’t always sure about what the future held, but they were always important to know, just in case.

Sung opened his mouth to begin what Havve assumed to be the recap of the dream, but before he could start, his eyes widened slightly and his mouth shut again. Havve shot him a questioning glance. A quick look at Sung confirmed that he had just realized something unpleasant and was hesitating slightly. Havve knew that Meouch and Phobos probably couldn’t pick up on that, but his little link with Sung let him understand more than usual. 

The other man only hesitated for a moment before sighing a little and hopping back to his story. “Anyway, um, so it was— the dream took place in the Zone.”

The effect of his words wasn’t instantaneous. There were a few seconds where everyone had to sit and process what he’d said before the reactions came pouring in.

“Really?” Meouch inquired, looking up for the first time all morning. “You’re not fucking with us?”

Phobos looked a little confused. “We’re not… in the Zone right now? Or even particularly close to it, for that matter.”

Sung had stopped tapping on the table. He didn’t seem to hear what his crewmates were saying. Instead, he gazed worriedly at Havve, picking at his lip with his teeth. The other two were still carrying a conversation amongst themselves. They had no idea about exactly  _ where  _ Sung had found himself after his planet’s destruction, only that that had been where he’d found Havve’s body.

That place was the Zone.

Just thinking about the sands he’d been trapped in sent his programming into a panic. It didn’t know what to do to process those memories— they were almost too human for him to  _ keep,  _ but somehow Sung had been able to (or hadn’t known how to remove) hold the memory of flames and voices in his head, drowning out his own head and sucking him in…

Havve had no idea what he’d been looking for on a death trap like the Zone, but he knew going back for  _ any  _ reason would be the stupidest thing he’d never let himself do. And he was sure Sung knew that, given their link, so why was he bringing this up? 

Against his better judgement, Havve nodded for Sung to continue. Sung cleared his throat and Meouch quieted down, Phobos’ hands falling to his lap again.

“Well, okay, so… it was on the Zone, but I wasn’t following us around. It was someone else.”

“That’s  _ possible?” _ Meouch’s eyebrows shot up. Phobos leaned forward, elbows pressed against his knees.

“I mean, apparently! I don’t know how, I swear. As far as I know, this was just a glitch in the Matrix and I’ll never do it again,” Sung shrugged, still messing with his lip. “But I know this because a ship crashed, and it wasn’t a model I’ve ever seen before. Not even when I found you two.”

Phobos and Meouch exchanged a look. Havve was getting a little impatient. He knew that this dream was an out of the ordinary vision for Sung, but he still didn’t see any reason why they needed to give up their safety to go back to the hell he’d already spent too much time in. Sung probably sensed this, because he launched into a quick explanation of the vision soon after, summing it all up in about a minute or two.

The crew sat in silence for a while, each ruminating on Sung’s words. Meouch spoke first, a little gruffly. He hated asking for help more than anything. “What do you guys think that even means?”

“It doesn’t mean  _ anything,”  _ Havve snapped, making his companions jump slightly. Sung frowned a little. “It’s just a dream. It doesn’t involve us yet, so we shouldn’t tempt fate to put us in even more danger when we’re  _ supposed  _ to be going to a little vacation soon. Earth is just in the next system or so over, we’re so close!”

“Havve, you know that’s not true,” Sung said softly. “If someone’s stranded out there and I saw it, we’re meant to help. Fate’s already decided.”

Havve knew he wouldn’t be arguing this point if it was happening on  _ any  _ other planet. But you could never trust the Zone, never never never. It would tear you to pieces if you showed any weakness or mercy. Sung’s complete naïveté was infuriating to him and it was on full display here. He  _ knew  _ better than anyone how Havve felt about that place and yet he was still the one suggesting this idiotic plan. “Sung, we can’t endanger ourselves to go help some person we’ve never even met because you think fate decided it,” Havve spat. “You need to grow up a little and think for once.”

“What if I go alone?” 

Havve’s LED eyes blinked once. Meouch and Phobos were quiet, sensing that this was not an argument they wanted a part in. “I’m sorry, what?”

“What if—“

“Oh no, I heard what you said. I’m just trying to think of a reason as to why you would think it would be okay to run off to a death trap of a desert to look at something that may or may not happen soon, abandoning your crew and friends to try this, and getting yourself killed in the process.” 

“Havve, I can’t just do  _ nothing _ .” Now Sung was getting heated, standing up from his seat at the table. “I saw something and I have a responsibility to act on it or live with that guilt! I’m not abandoning anybody, I’m—“

“Sung, you are  _ not  _ leaving this ship to go to a murder desert.” Havve’s voice was robotically calm, which was a sure sign that he was absolutely furious and his hardware simply wouldn’t process it more. “I will not let you. This vision was probably just a normal dream that normal people have. That’s bound to happen at least once in your lifetime. Nobody is in danger, and even if they were, you cannot leave your ship to go help. That would be irresponsible and idiotic.”

“But—“

_ “Sung.” _ Havve’s voice was deadly serious. He could sense Sung’s frustration and anger building, but Havve was determined. He would  _ not  _ be going back to that place, not ever again, and neither would his friends.

Sung sat back down, his protein bar forgotten on the table’s edge. “Fine.”

Meouch and Phobos almost seemed to snap out of a trance at this. Phobos immediately swiveled his chair back to the control panel, messing with switches uselessly. Probably trying to avoid eye contact. Meouch got up to make coffee for himself, probably also trying to avoid eye contact with the two seething parties involved in the debate. 

Sung relaxed a little and took to tapping on his thigh and chair arm. He was still pissed, Havve could feel it, but he knew he’d won.

Havve turned on his heel and walked back to his room. He needed a quick checkup after all that— his internal systems tended to overheat when he was angry like that.

He glanced out the window. It looked like they’d arrive at Earth’s system soon, which Havve was grateful for. He wished they’d get to go there more often, but patrolling the universe was a calling that none of them could refuse.

Havve plugged himself into the rig on the bare walls of his cabin, thinking about their apartment in Los Angeles.




Meouch was pretty sure he’d just witnessed the equivalent of an atom bomb exploding in their ship. Havve and Sung sniped at each other all the time, but it was mainly Sung being a little too much of an idiot and Havve having to remind him that he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d had such an explosive fight, and if he was being honest, he hadn’t even known that Havve was capable of that much anger. The robot was unsurprisingly very controlled, keeping his emotions guarded and wrapped up neatly. Sung, in contrast, had a tendency to almost  _ radiate  _ emotion every second. He had more nervous energy than Meouch had even seen on his little brother. But that fight was also strange for him— Sung never got that mad at them. He would get annoyed, sure, but even when Meouch and Phobos had been literally at each other’s throats, he hadn’t been mad. 

Something was definitely charged about that argument, Meouch concluded, sipping his coffee slowly. Sung was still tapping on the table, a sporadic beat punctuating the silence of the cabin. Havve had gone to his room, and Phobos was finished with the checkups and was now half sitting, half laying in a chair next to the biggest window in the common room. He was probably stargazing, trying to ignore the way Sung’s quiet indignation was settling in the air.

If Meouch was smart, he would have done something similar. But, unfortunately, he was not, and so he made the mistake of sitting next to Sung and clearing his throat. 

“So… is there anything that we need to know about that?”

Meouch had never been particularly observant or empathetic, but even he caught the shift in Sung’s body language at his question. He tensed up, clearly frustrated.

“About what?”

“About the big fuckin’ fight that just happened, Sung.” 

“It’s fine. Just leave it alone.”

“It’s clearly not fine. I’ve never seen Hogan that mad. Is there something we need to know—?”

“I said it’s fine, Meouch,” Sung responded, his tone clipped. He stormed away to his room, his hands clenched tightly. Meouch heard the quiet sound of Sung’s door sliding closed and sighed.

Phobos chirped smugly. “Nice going, dude.” 

“Yknow what, Phobos? What would you have done?” Meouch frowned, huffing as he plopped down into a chair.

“Waited for longer than ten seconds, at least,” Phobos signed, “maybe just kept an eye on him for a bit. Definitely not engage him in another argument.”

“Uh-huh. And how would you know that would work? Did they teach it in lord school?” Meouch’s tone may have read as harsh to an outsider, but no real malice was held in his words, as Phobos knew. 

The Corvidae’s face softened a little. “No… Dei used to get into fights a lot. He was so sweet, but very hotheaded. Kept trying to fight kids who’d make fun of me.”

Meouch was quiet. He knew the feeling, but had never known how to handle it. Seeing Phobos use his brother’s name sign was like picking off a scab from a barely healed wound for Meouch. His guilt came washing back, and Phobos caught sight of it, smiling a little bitterly.

“Hey, Meouch, it’s okay. I’ve made my peace with what happened. You should too.”

Meouch frowned and turned away. “Do we have anything else to look at from the ship diagnostics?”

Phobos took the change of subject, thankfully, and responded by pointing at a screen above Meouch’s head. 

Meouch ran more checkups than were needed. He needed something to do, anyway.




Phobos regretted bringing up his brother. He really missed the strange little moth, but telling stories about him made it a little better. He probably should have considered that it would make Meouch feel terrible. 

And now that everyone on the ship was in a bad mood, it seemed that Phobos had nothing left to do but look at the passing planets and feel the jagged scars on his back grow tighter.

The scars were what he suspected made Meouch feel worst. They definitely didn’t make Phobos feel good, either, so he could understand why, but their loss had been a total accident. Meouch couldn’t have known that Funk exposure would make the leviathans go crazy and murder everyone. They’d agreed on that long, long ago, and though Phobos trusted and loved Meouch now, it was definitely hard to think about Dei, even now. 

Dei represented everything good that Phobos wanted to be— the little fluffball had fallen into his life from god-knows -where and Phobos had found him on the forest floor, injured and almost unconscious. He knew that he wasn’t supposed to be on the ground, and he knew that his dads would kill him if they knew, but it was either their mild anger or letting this boy die. Phobos chose to bring the tiny boy back home, for his fathers to decide what to do with. They’d adopted him into their little group, and he’d fit right in, like the last piece in that 2000 piece puzzle in the living room. 

Deimos had learned the traditions of the new land he was in very quickly. The first thing they’d told him was to beware of the leviathans. Never leave the trees. Never. Phobos was pretty sure he’d never left Dei’s side for the first two years they’d known each other. They were brothers, inseparable by anything. 

Deimos was the nicest person Phobos had ever met. Where Phobos was hotheaded and impatient, Dei was calm and sweet. Phobos had been, frankly, a little shit in his youth. His dads had trouble getting him to do  _ anything _ , but once Deimos came along, he’d changed. Just a little, at first, but the two had rubbed off on each other. 

Then the leviathans had come, and undone it all… 

Phobos knew that he was still working on getting better, even now. He’d been so angry when he’d learned what had happened, so desperate for a reason that he’d lashed out constantly. Once he’d accepted that Meouch wasn’t responsible, he’d gotten a little closer to the Phobos that Dei had known, the softer and more understanding person hidden somewhere inside of himself. The Phobos hiding somewhere, cloaked in that rage. 

Sung had helped him a lot. Phobos figured it was the weird empathy stuff that let him do shit like that, though from what he’d said, his empathy wasn’t as strong for others as it was with Havve. Maybe he was just good with people. Phobos had no idea how to do anything with people. He’d been jokingly called the Lord of his flock’s group because he’d lacked the basic social skills to seriously take that title. The only people he was really super comfortable around were his bandmates and a few earth friends, and even they exhausted him sometimes. His mind would get tired of constantly reading social cues, trying to interpret a tone or a specific wording, of having to keep coherent conversations. The list would go on if he let it, but frankly, it made him sad to think about, so he tried to stop.

He’d never understood how Havve was so graceful around people. He always knew what to say, how to show people what you meant, how to be blunt. Phobos suspected that as time went on, his personality had absorbed some of Havve’s bluntness, which didn’t really help him on its own. It just made him look mean. 

He really, really,  _ really _ missed Dei. Deimos had been just as socially inept as he was, but at least he’d been nice about it. All Phobos knew how to do was accidentally insult someone, or how to make sarcastic comments. How to get under someone’s skin, how to piss them off, how to do everything wrong.

Phobos switched his focus to the window again. Thoughts were too depressing, and when in doubt, start counting things around you. 

The number of planets passing by. That seems like a good number.

_ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…  _

_...12, 13, 14, 15… wait, is that a planet? _

Phobos squinted. A silvery ship was floating outside the nearest planet, a smaller reddish-orange colored body. The ship seemed to be patched together through many different kinds of metals and a few assorted other kinds of materials. It was headed straight for the red planet. 

Phobos’ first thought was  _ Well, that’s not my problem.  _

_ Wait, that’s mean. Being mean to others is bad. _

_ I should tell Havve. Or Meouch.  _

Phobos turned from the window, stepping away to find his crewmates, when he realized something.

That was  _ their  _ ship. The escape pod they kept stuck on the side of the ship for emergencies. 

And Phobos had a very good idea of who’d taken it.

He’d definitely need to tell Havve about this one.





	2. Chapter 2

Sung really did feel bad about stealing the ship, to be fair. He hated getting into fights, especially with Havve, but it needed to be done. Someone needed his help, and he couldn’t live with himself if he just left them. Plus, if he was being honest, he was incredibly curious about what had happened to fuck up his dreams that badly. Whatever it was, it was enough to rip through millions of years of training, and it was  _ intriguing.  _

They had been so close to earth, so close, and Sung had to admit the idea of a vacation was super tempting for him. Going on another possibly deadly adventure after the ten thousand possibly deadly adventures they’d just had seemed much less fun than finally going back to earth and relaxing, but he was duty-bound. If not to himself, then to his people, to use their gift for good. 

Luckily for him, he knew that Mars happened to be connected to the Zone. He wasn’t sure how, exactly (he would have loved to study it if Havve would let him), but he knew that if you got lost enough, you would find your way to the Zone. A collection of lost and broken things.

He tried his best not to think about what Havve had looked when he’d gone through this shortcut. Tried to tell himself that his little escape pod was much better made than the earth technology they’d had in Havve’s time. Sung wasn’t sure if he’d convinced himself, but he was already entering the atmosphere. No time for second thoughts.

Hopefully he’d be back before they noticed he was gone! And if he wasn’t, he’d just… have to deal with Havve’s anger. Just for a bit. Havve couldn’t stay angry for that long, right?

Right?

The ship began to shake a little, signaling that he was about to hit the surface of the planet. Entry had gone smoothly, though a sinking feeling in his chest told him that wouldn’t be the hard part of this trip. 

Red sands covered the barren planet, eerily similar to the Zone’s bloodied sediment. Sung could sense a subtle difference: this planet seemed muted. If it had ever been like the Zone, it wasn’t anymore. Whatever it had been, now it was just a shell, a remnant. The thought that Mars had been like the Zone was very interesting to him, but he didn’t have much time to think about it, since the ship suddenly took a giant swerve to the left.

“WOAH!” Sung grabbed the controls, shoving them with as much force as he could to correct the ship’s course. He grasped the steering joystick in his left hand, the throttle in his right, and pushed as hard as he could to the right. 

  
  


The ship didn’t budge. It kept moving, as if something had grabbed it and refused to let go, an invisible hand grasping at his little ship. Suddenly, it began pulling him  _ towards the ground _ . Sung yelped, frantically trying to regain control, but it didn’t help much. 

He smashed the ship nose first into the ground, and the world went dark. 

This was a weird darkness, however. Sung basically considered himself an expert on the topic at this point, and his rule was that if the darkness was moving and you were not, it was bad. This wasn’t that kind, but it didn’t feel normal, either. It felt curious, trying to see who and what exactly he was, like a small child playing with a new toy. Not exactly sure what to do with him.

He reached out and touched the glass in front of him, thinking that if he let it get a better look, it might find something it was looking for. 

As his fingers touched the smooth surface, the darkness vanished, and his ship jerked into motion again, leading him to almost break his wrist from the force. The ship smashed into the ground again, and Sung groaned.

“Shit, dude,” he grumbled, crawling out of the ship’s exit hatch and back onto the red sands, “that has to be one of the wildest rides I’ve—“

He stopped as his food sunk into the soft red sand. He wasn’t on Mars anymore, no, certainly not. The feelings of crushing despair and terror that were emanating from every direction into his core could only mean one thing: he was back in the Zone.

Sung grinned nervously. On the one hand, he was happy that he’d hopefully be able to help someone. On the other, he was now absolutely sure Havve had been right. Being here was a terrible idea, he was sure as soon as he’d set foot on the planet. A terrible feeling was gathering in his gut. The temptation to simply grab his little spare of a ship and run far away from here was growing stronger by the second. 

Until, with almost perfect timing, a ship entered the atmosphere. Same model and situation Sung had seen in his dreams. The thing crashed into the sands, spraying the air with blood red sediment, and Sung ran for the ship before he could think twice about it. He’d reached the crater before too long, and could definitely feel someone’s presence there. As he’d told Phobos long ago, his empathy wasn’t always precise, especially when someone was good at hiding, but he could  _ always _ tell who was there. It made a great trick at parties. 

Before he could assess what had happened with the ship, and how it was faring, the side door opened. Just a little crack, but it was noticeable enough that Sung caught it and rushed over to help whoever was stuck inside. With a bit of elbow grease and luck, in a few minutes, the door was open. Sung reached a hand in to help whoever was inside and barely managed to catch the shivering heap of a person who fell out.

“Woah! Uh… what happened to you?” Sung lifted up the figure now laying in his arms, checking them for wounds. He immediately found one, a large cut on their chest and several smaller ones on their limbs and face. “Oh, jeez. I should have some first aid stuff in my ship—“

The person grabbed his arm desperately. “N- no,” they managed to say hoarsely. “The… the temp… temple… the temple…”

Sung felt like he should know what they were saying. “Um, the what now?” 

They pointed a weak hand towards a pure white spot on the horizon. Sung’s eyebrows knitted forward. He’d been sure that wasn’t there a moment ago, right? But anything could happen in the Zone. He’d just have to be careful. “You want to go there?”

The person in his arms nodded weakly. 

“I can get you there. Just hold tight.” 

They really didn’t weigh much, Sung noticed as he walked. It was almost worrying how light they were, honestly, it felt like they might melt into nothing if he stopped holding them. On top of that, the sand beneath his feet clung to him rather than simply slipping away like normal sands. Very unsettling and definitely not something you’d want to have happen while on a death trap of a planet carrying someone to a creepy temple! 

By the time they’d reached the temple, Sung was tired. It had taken a lot of effort to stop and free his legs from the sand without putting down his passenger into the dangerous quicksand. He was also getting very antsy. The planet could have just taken his ship by now, and soon it might come for him, knowing that he had no escape. He really just wanted to dump the person into the temple and run away, but he knew without help, they wouldn’t be okay. They’d die if he didn’t do something, and that’s exactly why he’d come here.

As he entered the temple, Sung noticed two things: one, the fact that the structure was  _ huge.  _ A building this big in such a barren place would have immediately caught his attention within seconds of landing. Something wasn’t right here. 

The second thing: a swirling ball of blue and green light was hovering in the center of the temple. It was the same one from his dream.

Sung blinked, too stunned to react, and in that split second, the person in his arms jumped away from him and towards the light. He reached out, some unknown instinct screaming at him to stop this, but they grabbed the light, and the world vanished in a cocoon of light, searing and burning through his skin.




Havve had a bad feeling even before Phobos came running frantically into his room. He’d just woken up a minute before, and he wasn’t even on full power, which immediately set off some alarms. Havve’s power cycle was set to wake him up when at full power, and not for anything else, so something big must have happened for him to wake before that.

He unplugged himself quickly, years of practice guiding his hands. Nervous energy filled his limbs like the air inside of a balloon, building and ready to burst. 

And then Phobos burst into the room, eyes wide, blue irises fully visible. Havve started to form a question, but before he could say anything, Phobos had grabbed his arm and begun to drag him across the ship. Havve followed, sure that whatever had gotten Phobos this riled up was worth it. Phobos got riled up a lot, but that was mostly anger. He tended to be prickly to strangers, only just barely managing to get along with his crewmates, but he never got  _ scared. _ At least, not like this. Phobos looked absolutely terrified, and Havve knew instantly that this was why he’d woken up.

They stopped just down the hallway at Sung’s door. A pit opened in Havve’s stomach when he realized the door was locked. Sung  _ never  _ locked his door, not even when he was working. They all just knew when he’d want to talk and when he didn’t, and he was grateful for that. 

Now that Havve thought about it, he couldn’t feel the usual humming of Sung’s thoughts at all. It was just… blank. All at once, the pieces came crashing into place. Phobos’ panic, Sung’s locked door, the blank feeling… 

Sung had left. Of  _ course  _ he’d left. Havve shouldn't have let him be alone after that big of a fight, he should have known that Sung’s wild curiosity and his stupid,  _ stupid  _ bleeding heart would compel him to run, to let his dreams take him to the end of the  _ fucking  _ universe. 

“Meouch,” Havve asked, tearing his eyes away from the door, “does he know?”

Phobos nodded, and without a word the two set off into the control room of the ship. Havve wanted to ask questions, but he knew that if Sung had gone, they didn’t have a second to spare. The Zone was a place that he knew better than he’d ever wanted to. Sung had prophecies of futures unfolding engraved into his dreams. All Havve had was a broken record of a mind, a fragmented scene playing again and again and again when he was at his lowest. If he failed to save Sung here, he’d never escape that loop, the shattered state of mind he’d slip into when the empath wasn’t around. 

Meouch was in the control room, frantically trying to do something, though what exactly he was succeeding at Havve wasn’t sure. Probably just panicking, and if Havve was honest, he would be in that place too if he didn’t have a hard drive instead of a brain, files instead of memories. Some human half inside of him was already there, pressing against his chest and limiting his breathing at the thought of going back to his prison. 

Breathe. Take command of the situation. 

“Do you know how long ago he left?” Havve pushed past Meouch, grabbing the controls from his grasp. It gave him something to focus on, something to distract himself from the maelstrom of wild emotions pounding in his head.

Phobos knocked on the wall to grab their attention before signing to Meouch. “Phobos says he came and got you as soon as he noticed. He would guess about fifteen minutes, tops.”

Havve cursed internally. He knew exactly where Sung had gone, and if he’d been gone that long, he’d already gotten there. 

“Fuck,” he breathed in, trying to collect himself against the wave of panic slowly collecting into a tsunami, “okay. Okay. Okay.”

“What do we need to do, Havve?” Meouch asked, nervously picking at his mane. Havve knew it had to be bad for him if he was asking for instructions. 

“Uh… strap in. I know where Sung’s going, and if we’re lucky, we can catch him before he gets there.”

“And if we’re not?” Meouch sat down in his seat behind the pilot’s booth. Phobos sat down at the navigation panel, head tilted and ready to receive the ship’s destination.

“We… we will be. We have to be.” Havve turned away. “Set a course for Mars, Phobos. We have to take a little detour to the red planet.”

Havve tried his best to ignore the empty chair in the cabin as they sped away from their blissful escape of Earth and towards almost certain doom.

  
  





Meouch was sure Sung was going to die. If not from the crazy ass suicide mission to the living planet thing, then from Havve’s wrath after he came back. Havve had displayed murderous tendencies when he’d first met Meouch, which had definitely been absolutely horrifying to find out from firsthand experience, but they’d mostly died down over time. He was absolutely sure they’d make a comeback specifically for this circumstance. He was also absolutely sure that dying on the Zone would be even more unpleasant.

Just about every bounty hunter in the galaxy knew about the Zone. It was impossible not to know. They’d all heard terrible tales about what happened to the people who landed on the wretched planet, and those were only from the  _ survivors.  _ Mirages filled with the temptation of memories long past would chase whatever cursed soul managed to find themself on the planet’s surface. And from what he knew (and what he didn’t know) about his fellow crewmates, they all had their fair share of missing the past. Meouch had never been one to listen to cautionary tales. Fairy tales and magic were not what would get you food on the streets. But something about this story had hit close to home for him, whether it was his own experience with the dangers of the past or simply his mistrust of anything that could steal that many ships. He still wasn’t sure if he believed that the planet was alive, but based on Havve’s reaction to the situation they were now in, it was definitely dangerous. 

Speaking of the situation they were now in, Havve was steering the ship through the atmosphere of Mars. Meouch only knew this planet by what he’d overheard Sung talking about with someone on Earth, probably Brian if he had to guess. The ship began to shake as they entered the planet’s atmosphere, and Meouch’s grip tightened on his armrests. He hated this part of space travel more than anything. It made him feel like they were going to fall from the sky at any moment, sink like a rock through the sands below. 

He took a deep breath and forced his hands to unclench. He didn’t want another stern talk with Sung about how expensive leather seats were. The last time that happened, Meouch had lost a fair bit of money.

Havve looked mildly scary when he was piloting the ship like this. Meouch glanced up at him for a moment and was immediately thrown back into his first encounter with the cyborg. The piercing red eyes, the entirely silent movements, the set determination in his jaw… It took all Meouch’s courage not to run and hide right then. Phobos was still turned away in the navigation chair, keeping an eye on their ship’s system status and speed. His back was exposed in the purple tank top he was wearing, allowing little bits of purple scars to peek out. Meouch cringed and shrank back at the reminder of what he’d done.

Apparently, looking at people wasn’t allowed for his brain anymore. Regrets began flooding back, like a tidal wave after a dam burst. He took another breath, picking at his paw pads. Focus on something else, anything else. He chose to stare out the front window of the ship. Somehow the wasteland he caught sight of calmed him down slightly, brought him back to what they were doing in the moment. He ran over the checklist of tasks in his head to stop the spiral of guilt his memories were taking him on.

Fix his door’s loose screw.

_ Phobos’ wings… _

Oil that damn squeaky joint in the engine room.

_ You left your brother to die… _

Help Phobos tune his new guitar.

_ The screams, the screams. _

Find Sung.

_ You left him too. _

Sometimes Meouch wished that his mind wouldn’t undermine everything he said. And that sometimes was all the time. It was very annoying.

Well, he asked himself, how are we going to find Sung?

_ You’re not,  _ the smug voice in his head answered.  _ You’re going to die instead! _

Meouch groaned internally. 

He put his attention back on the horizon, focusing on the patterns the sand made in the light of the sun. If he focused on that, it would keep him from thinking about how they were all about to die.

Speaking of which, they were getting pretty close to the ground… 

“Havve,” Meouch asked nervously. “Buddy? Why are we heading down?”

Havve didn’t answer. 

“Havve?” Phobos had started to notice what was happening, glancing up from the navigation station to stare at Havve. He seemed very concerned. Havve still didn’t answer.

The ground was getting closer, closer, closer, and Meouch’s voice was rising. “HAVVE!”

The ship hit the ground, jerking everyone inside to the back of their seats. Meouch nearly flew out of his and into the back wall of the ship. 

Everything went dark.




If they survived this, Phobos was never letting Havve drive again. He figured that running the ship into the fucking ground of a random planet on purpose was grounds for everyone else to agree with him, because nobody would ever do that in their right mind. Except that Havve had just done so, and Phobos was pretty sure that he was about to die sometime in the next three seconds, so it would be kind of hard to argue that point.

Surprisingly, when he opened his eyes, he wasn’t dead. This was such a surprise, in fact, that at first he didn’t even notice the light shining from the front of the ship’s window.

He looked to his right and spotted it before jumping back, almost instinctively chirping in surprise. A blue light in the vague shape of a humanoid figure was floating in front of their ship. As Phobos watched, the figure changed colors, shades of green and white and purple running through it. He leaned in, looking through the glass. 

Glancing around, Meouch and Havve appeared to be unconscious, or something of the sort. Meouch was leaned back in his chair, head lolling back, and Havve was frozen in the same place he’d been piloting the ship from, his red eyes dimmed to a gray.

He looked back to the light. It was still staring at him, looking slightly sad, somehow. It didn’t have a face, but something about it just… seemed sad, a deep melancholy radiating off its form. 

He recognized that feeling. It was what he felt whenever he thought about Deimos, thought about what could have been, thought about what was taken from him. 

Something that followed loss, something that trailed like a neverending shadow. He’d learned to deal with it, but it hadn’t gone away.

The light bobbed a bit, and Phobos got the sense it knew what he’d been thinking about.

It seemed to sigh, putting a shining finger to its lips. A warning…? 

Phobos reached a hand out to touch the window in front of him, and slowly the light followed, placing a multicolored palm over his. He wasn’t exactly sure why he was doing this, but it just seemed right. 

Before he could do anything else, time seemed to speed back up. The light glanced up and vanished, curling in on itself, and the darkness around the ship tunneled, blurring out into nothing. They crashed into the swallowing red sands of the Zone. Phobos was pushed forward into the glass by the force of impact, nearly smacking his head before stopping himself. He rubbed his wrist, which had been uncomfortably pushed against the window in the impact, and looked around the ship again, suddenly unsettled. His shipmates seemed to be waking back up, Meouch’s head beginning to return to its normal state of not being tilted and Havve’s eyes brightening back to their usual blood-red. 

Phobos jerked his head to the side in a clear what-the-fuck-was-that move to Havve. Havve ignored him, instead getting up and nodding.

“Well, we’re here, everyone.”

“The fuc’ wazzat?” Meouch rubbed the back of his head groggily. “Did you drive us into a fuckin’ planet, Hogan?”

“Yeah.” Havve opened the door to the outside and stepped out without another word.

Phobos and Meouch were left to stare at each other, confused. Neither had an explanation, so they quickly followed Havve’s example, bounding out of the ship after about a minute. Instantly, Phobos could see why Havve had been so against coming here. The sands were stained with the very essence of malevolence, shining with despair and loss, broken hopes and dreams scattered into the sands, never found again. The planet’s entire being felt like it wanted you, wanted you to let your guard down— but that wasn’t exactly it, now that Phobos reconsidered, it felt like you already belonged to it. It had you in its domain now, you belonged in its sands. Trapped. 

He shook off that pleasant thought of the day. They were here to find Sung, smack the shit out of him for being so stupid, and then leave. That was it.

That was it, he told himself, they’d get out of here. He was just psyching himself out.

Havve stopped in his tracks, seemingly looking at something in the distance. Phobos squinted next to him, scanning for what he could be looking for. It took about five seconds to find: a giant temple, made of what looked similar to marble, maybe give or take 4 times the size of a normal house given how easy it was to see. 

“Are you really gonna make us go to that creepy ass temple?” Meouch asked.

Havve’s response was short and sweet. “Yep.”

At least it didn’t take long to arrive at the creepy death temple. As they stepped up the front steps, Phobos noticed that what he’d thought was pure marble was actually stained with some kind of material. Red patches swirled beneath seas of white, staining the ends of pillars and the steps they were standing on. The whole building felt too… new to be in this desert of pasts and regrets, too fresh. Plus, who’d even build something like this out here? Where would you get the stone? Nothing about this place made any sense to Phobos.

He motioned for Havve. The cyborg glanced back to him, allowing him to sign, “Why are we here? Do you know he’s in there?”

Havve nodded slowly. “I can sense him in there. I’m almost positive. Plus, if he’s not in here…”

He didn’t need to finish the sentence. The sense of foreboding was good enough. 

Meouch snorted, clearly trying to hide his fear. “Alright, let’s go find sunshine man. Beat the shit outta him for abandoning us like that.”

Havve and Meouch stepped into the temple, and with a second’s hesitation, Phobos followed suit. 

The interior of the temple was just as huge as the exterior, as buildings tend to work. The first thing that caught Phobos’ eye was the walls— they were covered in sand, like a mesh screen of sediments coating the space between the pillars holding up the ceiling.

The second thing he noticed was Sung, suspended in a pillar of sand.

The third thing he noticed was the walls exploding inward, enveloping him in an instant, and the world smashing to dark.




Havve was really trying to feel bad, he really was. He was trying not to gloat, trying not to yell ‘I told you so!’ at the limp figure trapped in the sand, but it was really, really hard. On the other hand, they were probably in mortal danger considering that was Sung’s condition, which made him really wish he hadn’t been right. And then the walls had come crashing in, heading straight for his other two companions, advancing so quickly that they didn’t even have time to yell. Havve stumbled back, narrowly avoiding being trapped by the enormous tidal wave of sand that had consumed Meouch. Surprisingly, another wave didn’t appear to trap him as well, and he was left alone, standing in the huge temple with small sand particles floating in the air. His heart was racing, straining against his chest armor, tapping out a frantic beat, a silent distress signal. He stepped forward once, staring at the walls that had just exploded out, searching for a sign of his missing friends. The adrenaline kicking in had prevented any major panic yet, but Havve could feel the pressure of it building in his head and lungs and arms, like a river swelling behind a dam. He reached out, towards the wall next to him, but couldn’t quite bring himself to touch it, broken and shattered memories of these same red sands flooding his mind once again.    
  
“Oooh, what have we got here?”   
  
Havve spun around, startled. A figure with short, dark hair and a thin-set frame was standing before him, with mottled gray and white skin covering their sunken features. Small pinpricks of green and blue and white shone through their fingertips and swirled in the air around them like confetti after a parade. He jumped back, almost pressing his back to the wall in his shock.

“Ahhh, Havve Hogan!” The gray person giggled, reaching forward to Havve’s faceplate. “Interesting, interesting.” They tapped his nose with another giggle, and the air seemed to shimmer around them, like a desert mirage. Havve did not like that one bit. “I’m sure this is why it couldn’t see you, then. Too much metal, not enough human. Leftovers from the last run-in you had here, correct?”    
  
“My-- my what? Who are you?” Havve’s heart hadn’t slowed down, and he was afraid if it didn’t cam down soon it would just explode, graciously removing him from this strange and mortifying experience. This person did not act how they looked; their tight features suggested maturity and wisdom, but their giddy voice and bouncy movements portrayed them as much younger, more naive. 

“That’s not the question, silly! But you can call me…” They paused, at a temporary loss. They seemed to think on the question for a few seconds longer before grinning widely. It took all Havve had not to wince at the sight of their blood red teeth and sharp canines. “Little Red! That’s my name. That seems to be one of their little stories, the one about the silly girl and the wolf, yes?”   
  
“Y-- yeah, that’s-- that’s an earth story,” Havve managed, now thoroughly confused. “How…?”

“The one called Doctor seems to have learned it from some fluffy haired creature.” Red laughed again, a sound of smooth silk filling the room. It did not put Havve at ease. “That’s an off-topic question, though! Against the rules, you know that.”   
Havve most certainly did not. Unable to conjure a response, he simply stared. Red smiled, though it looked more like a snarl with their huge teeth. “Havve Hogan, I called you and your fun little band of merry men here to complete my fairy tale, just like this Little Red character! I want my happy ending, and you four can help me get it.”   
  
“Will this happy ending involve letting my friends go?” Havve felt like he’d just swallowed a jarful of lemon juice. He was not liking where these puzzle pieces were falling, painting a strange picture of an even stranger happening.

“Hmmmmm… that depends! On you, actually.” Red bounced on their heels, stepping back from their position of being three inches away from Havve’s face and spreading their arms out into the space of the temple. “You’re the hero of this story, the one with power! The little red riding hood, trying to defeat the wolf.”   
  
“And who exactly would this wolf be?”   
  
“Why, me, of course!” Havve was not a stranger to dealing with terrifying situations, he himself could be considered one, but he was incredibly unsettled here. Being back to this strange planet and talking to this strange creature was setting him completely on edge, unable to settle into any one truth for too long before being thrown out. Hearing Red say this threatened to throw his processors into disarray, the panic and stress full to bursting in his mind. So he simply did what he did best. 

Being cold.   
  
Taking a deep breath, he let his mechanics take his actions in, letting the hydraulics cool his emotions and drown out his thoughts. “Alright,” he intoned, eyes flickering back on to a bright, glaring red. “What do I need to do for you?”   
  
“Oh, what a neat trick you have there! Very intimidating.” Red spun around, laying a hand on the sand pillar that held Sung frozen in place. “As a little secret, from me to you, this wasn’t supposed to happen,” Red said, shooting a michief-ridden grin at the robot across the room, as if they were sharing some great secret. “You were supposed to go just like them, hm? I was going to do this myself! But I must admit, this was a little happy accident. You have something to do, and I get my tasks done for me! It may even be easier, this way. I thank you, lost soul, for stumbling into the right place at the wrong time.”   
  


They turned to face Havve once more. Havve stared back at them, the dull roaring of his heart’s rhythm tuned out by the calming effect of his mechanics’ natural cadence. Red held out a hand of red sand, beginning to blow on it and covering Havve’s optics in a blinding smokescreen of red dust.   
  
A small giggle rang through the room, suddenly appearing more distant as the sand around Havve’s form shimmered and changed, rippling into a new scene. He was greeted by a dark sky full of thousands and thousands of stars, more than there was on Earth. Clear pools of water surrounded him, tall trees stretching their branches into the sky next to small houses made of some kind of opalescent material, stretched into smooth geometric shapes.    
  
Red’s voice came through one last time. “Good luck, Havve Hogan. Find your way to grandmother’s house. Look for the light!”   
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> villain introduction pog ayyyy
> 
> hope you guys liked this chapter!! leave a comment if you’d like, those really make me happy :^D


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the one with the drug and sickness stuff!! meouch had a bit of a rough past. if that makes you uncomfortable be warned that it’s in this chapter!

The boy looked up and around, giggling as he ran. The forests here grew tall and thin, grouping together and forming huge canopies. The starry summer sky was barely visible from the forest floor. His yellow eyes flashed through the darkness of the shade, piercing the black shroud covering the life beneath his feet. He glanced behind him, breathless from laughing and running, before shouting out a call, “You’ll never find me, Ci!!”

As he turned back to look where he was headed, the boy ran headfirst into something, collapsing to the ground with a soft gasp. He sat up, rubbing his nose. “Ow!!”

Behind him, a silver plated figure came rolling through the bushes. She was surrounded by dots of blue light, all round shapes and bubbles held together by smooth grey platinum and chrome eyes. “Sung? What’s happened?”   
  


Sung twisted towards her. “Aw, you found me! I just ran into this big thing here, ‘sall. It hurt my nose!”    
  


He thrust a hand towards his nose, which was displaying a small stream of golden blood dripping down his face. Ci gasped, the reverb to her voice making her sound a bit like a hologram, and leaned down at her waist to look closer at her friend’s wound. “Oh no! Does it hurt at all?”   
  


“Nah! I’m too cool and strong for that.” Sung held out his arms and tried to flex to drive home his voice, but Ci was no longer paying attention to him. She was staring just past him, ocean-blue eyes wide with artificial light. Sung followed her gaze, and his mouth fell open.

A big robot, much bigger than Ci was standing in front of them, motionless and menacing. No doubt that this had been what he’d run into, he thought as he scrambled to his feet, taking a place beside Ci. In a small voice, he managed to ask a quick hello to the towering thing.

“Sung? Sung, I think we should… we should run,” Ci whispered, rolling herself closer to Sung. “When you’re ready, we’ll--”   
  


Before she could finish her sentence, two red eyes pierced through the dark, bloody and all-seeing. Sung let out a yelp, grabbing his friend’s hand and diving behind a tree. The robot began to move in a much more personified way than Sung had expected, smacking its head twice and muttering something about a stupid light. He stared, fascinated by the thing, before it swung its bright red murder-eyes to look at them. Sung flattened himself against the tree bark, feeling the rough surface rub against his bare shoulder and arms. The strange robot let out a metallic sound that might have been considered laughing.

“Your friend there is glowing,” the robot said, more warmly than Sung would have guessed. 

“Are you here to hurt us?” Sung asked, peering around the tree to meet the robot’s eyes. The stranger looked surprised somehow, though his faceplate remains unchanged. 

“I don’t think so,” he responded, picking at the back of his head. Sung guessed he was getting at a wire on the back of his neck, though why he didn’t exactly know.

Ci let out a small noise behind him, blue eyes flashing. “If he’s not here to hurt us, then…”   
  
Sung exchanged a smile with her, stepping fully out from behind the tree. “New friend!” 

Ci and Sung tackled the stranger in a bear hug, which was a little hard for Ci, since she didn’t have long arms to work with. The robot seemed surprised, his arms raising around him as he tried to deal with the several pounds of children hanging around his torso. “Wait… Sung?”   
  
Sung stepped back with a grin, a thumb stuck in his chest as a sign of pride. “That’s me!”   
  


“And I’m Ci,” Ci put in, rolling back and mimicking Sung’s gesture.

This seemed to further confuse the robot, but it quickly passed. “Well, uh, if you two are going to introduce yourselves like this, then I guess it would be rude of me not to do so as well, right?” Without waiting for a response, he finished the thought, “My name is Havve. I’m a robot, as you probably figured out. You seem like smart kids.”   
  


“We are!” Sung said, excitedly waving his hands. “How’d you get here, Havve? You don’t look like a Lunair model!”   
  
“Um,” Havve looked uncomfortable with this, seemingly searching for an answer as Ci and Sung waited. “I… I came from somewhere far away. I’m not entirely sure how I got here, to be honest.”   
  
“Ooooh,” Ci squealed, rolling in a complete circle before stopping again. “A mystery!!”

“A mystery,” Sung agreed, a hand raised to his chin. “We should figure out where you came from! Maybe he has a really cool spaceship, Ci!”    
  
At her friend’s words, Ci did another circle. “Do you think?! How cool would that be!!”

“Right?! Mom NEVER lets me in the hangar,” Sung complained, pouting at Havve for emphasis. “Something about not being old enough.”   
  
“How old exactly are you?” Havve asked.    
  


“I’m 10 and one week exactly! Ci is too,” he explained, leaning in as if he were sharing a big secret. “We’re birthday buddies!”   
  
Havve nodded, and Ci bounced on her wheel. “Sung!! Sung, Sung! We should find a little secret base to have a one-week 10 year old anniversary! We could bring Havve and hide it somewhere in here, maybe even over by the creek!”

Sung gasped and clapped excitedly. “Great idea!! Havve, do you want to do that?”   
  


“Um, sure? I think that’s fine by me,” Havve responded, his bright red eyes flickering as he talked.

“Are your eyes alright?” Ci asked, her wheel quietly whirring as she moved closer to Havve, worry in her voice.

“Yeah, don’t worry. Sometimes they’re like that.”

“Are you sure?” Ci leaned in, peering into the larger robot’s eyes more closely. They flickered again, but Havve nodded.

Sung grabbed Havve’s hand, taking off into the forest, towards the spot he and Ci had found on their birthday last week, the shaded spot next to the stream, with the big, very climbable oak tree. Sung was sure his moms would chew him out if they knew he was planning on climbing so high up, but they weren’t here, now were they? He knew what he was doing, and besides, he had Ci to take care of him if anything bad happened.

Dragging Havve behind him, he turned to look back, beginning to form the likes of a taunt before his foot snagged on a root. The robot held tight to his wrist, helping him back up swiftly before he could crumple to the ground. Sung shot him a sheepish smile. “Sorry.”   
  


Havve couldn’t really smile back, but Sung got the sense that he would be smiling if he could. “Not a problem. Just try to keep an eye out for those, okay? No more turning around and running into things. Got it?”   
  


Sung nodded solemnly, very serious about the promise to his new friend. “Got it, mister Havve!” He took off again, heading back in the same direction they’d been moving. Ci had waited a few seconds for them, but when she saw they were back up and moving, she took off. The race was on! 

No way Sung would lose this race! He never lost, and this time he even had a partner to help him. Careful not to turn back and break his promise, he yelled into the whipping wind in front of him. “We can beat her, Havve!”

Surprisingly, his voice seemed to carry over well, as Havve increased his pace to even out with Sung. His longer legs and lack of need for energy probably helped too, if Sung thought about it. Assuming he was a full robot, which he couldn’t really ask right now. Ci’s little blue lights were bobbing in the trees above them, bouncing and weaving expertly through the brush. Little thorns were digging into Sung’s bare ankles, slicing open stinging cuts. That would be fun to explain when he got home, he was sure, especially since his moms had specifically told him to stop running through thorns like this because they were running out of the cleaning cream used to treat cuts. 

Sung glanced back over at Ci, taking a mental note of the little mushroom ring they’d used to mark the way to the fort location. They were getting close, and Ci was still so far ahead…

He took a deep breath in, stopping for a second. Havve nearly bowled him over with the momentum he was going on, just barely managing to stop before they collided. Sung let his eyes wander, letting his focus pick out the memories he had of this clearing. Something about the way Ci had just gone wasn’t right, he was sure of it, but he wasn’t sure why.

Until he spotted a fallen tree, blocking off the path they’d used a week ago. A smile stretched across his face. Of course! Ci was a faster runner than he was due to her smooth wheels and engine, but that was exactly why he’d be able to beat her-- her wheels kept her from going over super rough terrain, like, say, a fallen tree. 

“Come on! We can make it over there before her if we really, really try,” Sung called before taking off. Havve seemed to take the hint, his metallic footsteps clanging through the forest just behind Sung. Sung cleared the tree with only a few seconds of pause, vaulting over using his arms. He scraped his palms in the process, but it only hurt a bit, and his moms would probably never even see it. 

Now they were back on track, Sung could see it. The way the suns just barely trickled through the leaf cover, the slightly soft quality of the ground, all of it was familiar. The river was just a few meters ahead-- they were so close, he could almost hear it. And then he did hear it as they approached, the floor becoming more and more slippery and precarious. 

At that moment, Ci’s lights began to shine behind the trees as she converged on the pair. Her eyes widened in surprise, giving Sung at least a bit of satisfaction that he’d managed to do something unpredictable. “How’d you-- it’s fine! I’ll still win!”

Sung didn’t respond, his entire focal point of energy focused on running. Havve was still centimeters behind him, which was a little intimidating considering his height and build, but they were partners, ready to win! 

The top of the fort showed, and Sung  _ flew.  _ His feet pounded against the soft forest floor, barely touching the ground. His lungs heaved and wheezed, but he kept going, determined to get to the wooden fort before Ci did.

It was so close! Ci was right beside him. He could hear her engine’s strained humming almost synced up with his panting, Havve’s footsteps tapping out a steady rhythm behind them. It was almost musical, coupled with the babbling of the river and the small sounds of birdsong up in the trees.

He reached for the edge of the fort, and his fingers met a wooden surface. He’d almost shot right past it at the pace he was going, and Ci rolled up a fraction of a second later. Havve stood, a decent length away from the fort. Sung let out a triumphant cry. “I did it! Good race, Ci, and thanks for being my awesome race partner, Havve!”

They all stopped to catch their breath. Well, it was more like Sung stopped to catch his breath and the other two waited for their engines to cool down, but same difference. Sung glanced up at Havve, his eyes shining. “Welcome to the fort!”   
  


It was quite a magnificent building, Sung had to say. Even for something made of sticks and small logs and flower vines they’d found after hours of searching the trees, it was ethereal, like a little memorial to the past. 

“Can we go inside?” Havve asked quietly, staring up at the curtain of flowers that served as a roof. Ci and Sung exchanged a look before nodding with mock seriousness. 

“Of course, mister Havve Hogan,” Ci replied, a mischief ridden look in her eyes. “But first!”

“You gotta find something to add to the fort,” Sung finished. “So it’ll have you in it all the time!”

“Something that represents you,” Ci added, holding out a small blue flower in her palm.

“Do you have anything in mind?” Sung tilted his head, curious to see what Havve would do. The robot’s eyes flickered twice (Sung guessed it was a processing signal) before stabilizing again. He nodded slowly. Sung clapped excitedly. “Is it something in the forest?”

“Yeah,” Havve said. “Think it was over by that tree, near where you scraped your hand.”   
  
“You saw that?!” Sung hid his hands behind his back, eyes wide. “Don’t tell my moms!!”

“Saw what?”

Ci giggled. “Well, if you know where it is, we can go get it now! As long as I’m not required to jump over the tree again.”

“You won’t be! Don’t worry, it’ll all work out.” Sung turned on his heels to face Havve. “Show us the way!” 

Havve laughed softly. “On it, boss.”   
  


They walked back to the fallen tree trunk, which was covered in mushrooms. There were so many different kinds, and Sung quickly got distracted by asking Ci which ones were which. Her flora catalogue processors really came in handy sometimes. Havve was inspecting the bottom of the trunk, bent over. He seemed to be looking for something, which would make sense, since that was what they’d come to do. 

Just as Ci was getting to tell him about  _ Omphalotus illudens,  _ Havve stood again, waiting for them. Sung glanced up and saw the tall figure standing, something small clutched in his fist. Sung ran up to him, trying to get a peek at what it was, but the robot wouldn’t open his hand. 

“You’ll just have to wait a bit longer, hm?” Havve had a bit of a sarcastic streak, Sung noticed. He pouted as they walked back, still drawn in by the promise of the mystery item held captive in Havve’s hand.

They’d come back upon the fort quickly, and the first sun was beginning to set. Sung knew he and Ci would be expected home soon, which made him all the more curious about what Havve had chosen. 

He fidgeted, waiting for the reveal. Ci seemed just as antsy, whirring softly as she rocked back and forth on her wheel. 

“Well, what is it?” Ci asked, rolling over to try and take a look. Havve let out a small noise of amusement before opening his palm.

Held inside was a rock, not small enough to be called a pebble, but close. The surface of the rock was grainy, streaked with dark reds and pinks and little pockets of gray. Sung and Ci stared. It was a pretty cool rock. 

“Where are you going to put it?” Sung asked abruptly. 

“OOH! I know where!” Ci rolled over to the fort, gesturing to a little nook next to the entryway. “Here, here!”

“No, no-- here!”

The two kids took turns trying to find places to house Havve’s rock. The robot was surprisingly quiet, simply turning the rock over in his hands and watching the bombastic kids do their thing.

“I think this may be goodbye for us,” Havve said. He was looking up at the sky, which was now fading to gray. The second sun was setting.

“Oh no!! How will we know where you put it if we leave now?” Ci cried, mildly distressed. 

“It’ll be a surprise. A little scavenger hunt for you two tomorrow.” Havve glanced down at the little droid. “I expect you to win tomorrow’s race, Ci.”

“Will you come back?” Sung had a feeling he knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it.

“...I don’t think I’ll be able to,” Havve responded after a few seconds. He sounded a bit downhearted. 

“Aw, no… but you’re my race partner now! You have a stone in the fort, or at least you’re about to have one there. You can’t just leave!” 

“I don’t think I have a choice here, Sung.”

Something in his tone silenced Sung’s complaints as Ci looked up at the sky again. “He’s right, too, Sung. We have to head home now.”

“...Alright,” Sung said finally, giving one last glance back to the mysterious robot. “We’ll keep the stone there. In case you come back.”

“Thanks, Sung. I’ll look for it.”

Sung turned to go, starting off into the brush while Havve placed his stone and the first stars’ light pierced through the sky. A rush of blue light filled his vision, and the world went weightless.

-

Havve woke up with a headache, and that was where it all went downhill. First he realized that he was still in that freaky temple, the walls just as sandy and deadly-looking as they had been when he’d been pulled into whatever mind trick that was. Second he realized that Sung was no longer suspended in air by that tendril-thing. Instead he was held in place by a pillar of blue light, and unlike most blue lights Havve had come into contact with, this one did not seem particularly benevolent. Third, he realized that Red was about 4 centimeters away from his face. 

He didn’t consider himself a loud or expressive person, but he was also not ashamed of the yelp he let out when he saw the strange creature’s red fangs spread wide near his face. They giggled, rolling back on their heels. “Didja have a nice trip there, Hogan?”

“I-- wh-- why do you have to be so cryptic,” Havve said, exasperated. “I get enough of this bullshit from Sung. Can’t take much more of it.”

“Well, guess you’ve earned a little explanation then, mister, since you did such a good job there!” Red grinned. “You got yourself a deal, then.”

“What’s that deal, before I accept it?”

“Deal is that you get to ask one question before I send you off again. I’ll answer it truthfully and you’ll be sent on your way! That good?”

“My way to where?”

“Is that your question?”

Havve thought it over, assessing his options. He was curious about where he’d just gone, since it clearly hadn’t been here, but… something about the way Red was twirling in place was bugging him. “Um… no. I have a different one.”

“Alright then, let’s hear it, Captain Chrome.”

“Capta-- you know what, whatever. My question is what exactly am I doing?”

“Ahhhh, ah! Good choice, there.” Red put a hand to their chin, mimicking a thinking pose. “You’re collecting for me! These lovely little auroras won’t harvest themselves, you know.” They twirled their fingers as if playing the air like an instrument. Blue sparks filled the air around their fingers, lighting up the room with heat and light. Red’s face looked very strange in the new light, as if it was revealing a deep sadness. The effect only lasted a minute before dissolving once more into nothing, their original mischief-filled gaze returning. Havve stared at the light, not entirely convinced of any particular explanation yet.

“Oh, come on, Havve Hogan-- you’re smarter than this! Use that computer brain of yours!”

“I-- you’ll have to forgive me for being confused,” Havve said dryly. “Pretty sure I just got randomly dumped into a memory by a powerful entity I know nothing about.”

“On the right track! Look a bit deeper, red riding hood.” They continued to curl the light between their fingers, and Havve tried to work through his growing frustrations at Red’s cryptic mannerisms and strange movements. He stared at the light, trying to think of what they could possibly be talking about. The shade did seem somewhat familiar, but he couldn’t place it exactly.

“I got nothing,” he said after a few minutes. Red let out an exaggerated sigh, dramatically letting themself fall to the floor. The light began to ripple into a form, a vaguely robotic form with glowing eyes and heart, small arms and wheels. Havve’s eye displays blinked. “...Ci?” 

“FINALLY!” Red exclaimed, perking up once more. “Yes! It’s that little robot girl from the doctor’s memory. Though I suppose he’s not really a doctor, is he?”

“Wh-- was that really his memory?”

Red nodded. “Of course!”

“How…?”

“Let’s just say the Zone and I have an agreement. These auroras come from memories, Havve Hogan. You’re going to retrieve them for me.”

“Why would I do that?” Havve asked, a sinking feeling settling into his gut. Any deal with the Zone couldn’t be good, especially considering this planet’s affinity for memories and invading mindspaces. Red’s sudden grin seemed dark and sinister, a quick snap in nature compared to their bubbly excitement just seconds before, red fangs twisting into a snarl.

“Because I need them. And we’re friends, right?”

Havve was about to offer resistance to that claim-- he definitely wouldn’t call kidnapping someone’s friends and using them to your own gain a friendship-- but he was cut off by Red’s response to their own thought. “Of course we are!”

“And if you don’t, your friends will undeniably be consumed by the desert sands. I’ll be powerless to stop them without these lights. I do not trust this sinister place as much as you seem to think.” They smiled, giving him a cheery wave as he stood in shock. “Bye, red riding hood!”

The blue light in their hand surrounded him in seconds, overruling his circuits and forcing a system reboot. The last thing he saw was error messages covering his vision and the image of bared red fangs taunting him before he slipped away, back into a fragment of times past.




Being trapped was the worst possible thing Meouch could imagine, even worse than the endless running he lived through now. Trapped was worse. Trapped was losing autonomy, trapped was being useless, trapped was failure in his eyes. It was why he always wanted to avoid being caught more than anything, but when stealing a highly valued drug, things were bound to go wrong a few times. 

He could hear the familiar crashing and whispers of the market around him as he fled into the streets, back against an alley wall. The telltale chips on the wall and the tiny graffiti murals told him he was nearing his little base, where Tempo would be waiting for him. He clutched his small vial to his chest, ready to bolt at any given second as the harsh beating of his pursuer’s footsteps grew closer. Deep voices were yelling in the streets, mingling with the indignant sounds of passerby, and Meouch pulled his visor down closer to his nose. His shoulders shivered as he turned to climb the surrounding buildings, head held high and scanning the roof for any sign of hostiles.

“HEY!” 

Meouch froze for a moment before forcing himself back into a lax pose and sliding down to the ground once more, carefully slipping the vial into his pocket once more. “Hey,” he responded easily, his tone as casual as he could manage. Facing off against him was a horned man in a pure white uniform, holding a long metal pole that was sparking with electricity. Meouch tried not to look at that part. Those things hurt like hell to have used on you. 

The man squinted. Meouch noticed his eyes were a very pretty yet very unnatural shade of blue, almost white. Could he see well? “You-- where are you going?”

“Ah, well, I got a bit of food to share with my neighbor in the next building over,” Meouch lied easily. “Gotta get it over there, even with all the shit goin’ on in the streets, yeah?”

“Why’d you try to climb?”

“Didn’t wanna get hit with one o’ your fancy poles there, bud.” He gestured to the worker. “Sometimes accidents happen ‘nd someone gets hit with one. Not gonna be me if I go this way.”

“Right.” Weird Eyes stopped squinting, toying with the pole in his hands. “And where exactly is this food?”

“Aw, dammit, man,” Meouch grumbled. He didn’t really have a good plan right now, but this guy didn’t need to know that. “Think I dropped it when you startled me. Lemme look, ‘kay?”

His luck was starting to wear thin. It was clear as his new friend stopped playing with the pole and frowned. Electricity lashed through the air. “I don’t know if I can do that for you. Bud.”

Yep. There it was. “C’mon, don’t do that to me.”

The guy began advancing on him, and he sighed, beginning to climb back up the wall. He heard a surprised cry come from behind him before the whip hit the wall, lashing out and leaving a spidering burn mark just centimeters from where he was on the ladder. Meouch jumped back, clinging to the wall with his claws as he climbed faster and more frantically. The whip cracked again, but he was definitely moving faster than the guy chasing him down. He was widening the gap as he set foot on the roof of the building, paws scrabbling as he grabbed for ground to haul himself up onto. 

With a grunt, he was up, but he knew he didn’t have long. He could hear the officer yelling for backup into his communicator, and he knew he’d definitely been found out at this point. The vial of funk in his pocket seemed to grow warmer as he ran, reminding him of how he’d gotten to this point. He skidded to a halt at the edge of the building’s roof as workers in white uniforms began flooding in. Unfortunately, his plan hadn’t included the idea that rooftops are not infinite ground to stand on, and now that oversight was coming back to bite him in the ass.

Great.

He glanced over his shoulder at the advancing crowd. Whips danced around the ground at his feet, scarring the concrete as he dodged the blasts. There were about 4 or so workers now, 2 with clear weapons (including his nice new friend, he noted) and 2 without. He took a deep breath and stepped towards them, trying for a winning smile. “Hey there, everyone. Is there some kinda agreement we can come to?”

He got no answer other than another whip’s telltale buzz as it shot past his ear. He turned around, beginning to sprint away as the rest of the workers’ weapons trained on him. Even he had to admit that this was not the most ideal of situations. 

The next rooftop over was a long jump away, but if he tried, he might make it. It wasn’t like he had much say in the matter anyway, he knew it as the scuffling behind him grew ever closer, knew it as sure as he knew the feeling of adrenaline pumping through his heart and brain and blood. 

He coiled like a spring and bounced away from the edge of the roof, sailing through the air as if on wings of wind. The arc of the fall happened more quickly than he’d anticipated, but he managed to dig his claws into the cracking brick of the building’s roof as another whip blast whizzed by his head. Yanking himself up, he kept running along rooftops and buildings, knowing that a single stumble could spell the end of his freedom and of Tempo’s life. A paw closed around the vial in his pocket, clutching it like a lifeline in the deadly chase he’d been thrust into. 

He leaned over to jump again, only to feel his foot catch on an exposed panel of the shaky tin roof he was running on. He tumbled forward, somehow managing not to smack his head on the edge of the roof. Unfortunately, his body did not get the memo to stop in time and he tumbled forward, barely managing to catch his fall with a poorly-executed roll onto the cracked pavement below.

He groaned, trying to sit up and get back away from the workers. He could hear their weapons drawing closer and closer, air crackling like telltale stormclouds before a lightning strike. Meouch managed to recover his breath and duck under the ledge caused by the building’s roof just as the workers’ footsteps thundered over the thin sheet of tin above him. He didn’t dare let out a breath until the crackle in the air was long gone, until their voices had faded into the distance. Once he was sure they’d left, he slowly inched out of place, taking in a few deep breaths to calm himself and letting a slow grin spread across his snout. 

In the midst of celebration, a loud clanging of metal scraped through the alley, causing him to yelp and desperately crawl back to his hiding place. Red lights shone behind him as he turned, and he knew he was definitely fucked. He turned nervously, trying for a winning smile that hopefully said “I am definitely not a threat and have never done anything wrong in my life,” but it probably read as more of a “please don’t kill me.”

“No— Fucking— hey, Meouch,” the metal thing said casually. He seemed a bit confused, and more than a little exasperated. “Do you have anything that might be magical over there?” 

Meouch nearly dropped the vial in shock. His expression dropped before becoming more guarded. “Fuck no. Not for you.”

“Hm. Well, I may as well help you get away from those fine folks up on the roof.”

Meouch glanced up. Shit. In his surprise, he’d forgotten about his pursuers. They’d probably figured out that he wasn’t on the roof anymore, and that’d leave one spot where he could be—

Suddenly he was all too aware of the voices bouncing off the surrounding buildings. His fur stood on end as he glanced over at the stranger. “Fine. Plan?”

“Plan is simple.” The robot grabbed Meouch’s arm before he could react. He hollered to the workers. “HEY! IS THIS THE GUY YOU WANT?”

In a lower voice, he leaned to Meouch as the lion tried to struggle out of the vice grip his arm was now stuck in. “We get you caught. Sorry— I know you hate that, but you need to trust me here.”

“Like hell I would!” Meouch hissed, clawing at the unforgiving metal grasping his arm. 

The officers were there in a flash, and upon seeing Meouch, the horned man grinned. “Yeah. That’s the one.”

“Oh, great. I was hoping you’d say that.” The horned officer hopped down from the roof, followed by his collegues. The robot holding his arm hostage didn’t move or speak.

And then everything exploded into action. 

In one instant, the robot had swung his arm behind him and let go, leaving Meouch dazed and slightly motion sick. He swept a metal foot towards the shin of the nearest officer, who went down with a sickening crack of the leg. A whip fastened itself around the arm of the robot, but he glanced up, seeming annoyed. With no reaction, he grabbed the whip and yanked it towards him, sending the officer flying into two others. With a swipe of his bulky arm, the last remaining officer went out cold. He turned, grinning to Meouch. “Alright. Now that that’s done.”

“Wh… how… what the fuck is happening?”

“A lot of things, really, I’m Havve. I’m pretty sure I can tell you that, at least, Red didn’t say I couldn’t.”

“That somehow answered none of my questions.”

“Yeah, I figured. Can’t believe I caught you stealing, though, that shit always seemed really distant.”

Meouch frowned, glaring at Havve. “Listen, I don't need to explain myself to you.”

Havve put up his hands in a placating gesture. “Fair enough. Are you going to deliver that shit or not?”

“Yeah. You’re not coming with me.”

Havve’s red eyes flashed. “Try and stop me.”

Meouch didn’t take that challenge. The walk to his little shack with Tempo wasn’t long, just nervewracking as they avoided any crowded streets and clumps of people. Once, Meouch thought he’d seen a crap of white uniform and had forced them both to hide, but they’d gotten oout alright after that. The walls gradually got more rundown, the paint more chipped, until finally their footsteps ceased outside of his little home. Havve was quiet, taking in the sight. Meouch knew that the sagging, crumbling concrete structure with a barely functioning section of roof was a little hard to look at, From the holes in the walls to the steel beams twisting through the walls and top, everything was a mess. He started off inside, and Havve followed after a beat more of quiet contemplation. 

Tempo was laid out on a makeshift bed next to the most intact part of the roof. His fur was matted down with sweat, bright amber eyes sqeezed shut under swollen lids. Black patches stirred under his skin and pawpads, his claws flexing as he slept. “A Boredom infection,” Havve muttered to himself. Meouch didn’t ask how he knew. He just knelt down next to his friend and withdrew the vial of precious liquid from his coatpocket. Thankfuully, the glass they packed this shit in was incredibly thick.

He carfully poured the Funk onto Tempo’s paws, praying this would work again. Tempo’s breaths became labored for a moment as the Funk writhed on his skin. He hissed softly, and Meouch couldn’t help but flinch at the sight. “Yeah, sorry, bud,” he soothed. “I know it sucks.”

Havve hadn’t said a word this whole time. His voice came out slightly more rough than it had been when he finally said something. “It hurts less if you apply it on a cloth instead of a direct application.”

“Mmm. Really? How would you know?”

“i’ve got a friend who was in a similar situation once. If you give me the vial, I can try that for yours.”

Meouch was hesitant to hand over the bottle. “No offense, but I have nothing but suspicion for you there, mister mysterious robot.”

Somehow, Havve’s tone got softer. “Please. I do want to help, at least a bit.”

Meouch’s response was cut off by a strangled cry from across the room. Tempo’s body shifted, claws fully out and brows furrowed over his inky forehead. He rushed to lean by his friend’s side, laying a hand on his forehead. Havve claimed to know how to help. And Tempo clearly needed it. “I…”

He clutched the vial tightly as he went to hand it over. “Be careful.”

Havve met his eyes as he took the bottle. “I will be. Thank you, Meouch.”

And then the world was no more.

-

Red’s clapping was the worst thing Havve had ever heard, even worse than the whips of those officers in the memory. He stumbled forward, green light pouring from around him. 

“Good job there, riding hood! Impressive fighting skills you’ve got.” They pointed at Sung’s sand cocoon. “A bit of that was in that one’s memories, but I couldn’t resist trying to see for myself. Deadly robots are very interesting, apparently!”

Havve didn’t even bother responding. Seeing someone Meouch had only mentioned in a good light, a light that displayed his friend as happy and active, be so desperately hurt felt like a huge invasion of privacy to Meouch’s mind. He did not like it. Sung had talked about Ci enough that his scene had been fairly well-known, but seeing Tempo so beaten down and downright broken while Meouch tried to fend for him was… wrong. 

“What’s next,” Havve muttered dryly. “I’m assuming Phobos?”

Red’s clapping resumed again. “Spot on! His little day is the last task you need to attend to.” They paused, seemingly amused by something unknown to Havve. “Hehe, a day, a day…”

“What are you using these lights for? Didn’t you say I was going to go up against you? Why do you even need me?” Havve’s questions bubbled up before he could stop them, and Red turned to stare at a wall. They flexed their fingers, green and blue light racing along their veins. 

“Mmmm… all in good time, riding hood. Being impatient gets you nowhere fast,” they purred, fingers clicking together and sparking the light into fragments. It fizzled out in the air, leaving Havve somehow more confused than he’d been before he’d asked anything at all. They clearly weren’t going to answer his questions. 

“Is there any chance I could get another deal? A question-type thing like last time?” Havve’s head ached, which he didn’t even think was supposed to be possible. Red’s head tilted and they spun on their heel, looking over at him.

“I’ll allow that, just because I like you. One question and then you’re locked into this aurora, Havve Hogan,” they said. Their signature air of bubbling carefree attitude was heavy in their words, but Havve could feel a deep seriousness to what they were saying. Something almost desperate was laying under their words, which was… confusing to him.

He waited a moment to think about what he’d say. Questions were racing through his mind like fish circling in a bowl, and sorting through them was difficult. Havve opted for simply saying the first coherent thing that came to mind. “Why shouldn’t I just leave?”

Red grinned as if they’d hoped for that answer. “Ooooh, that one’s easy!”

Tendrils of light curled around them and clamped down onto his sleeping friends’ forms. “If you refuse, I have no more use for these little people over here. The Zone is hungry, after all— who am I to deny it a soul?”

They giggled as Havve stared in shock. 

The world smudged into darkness once again, the searing bright light of Red’s auroras never leaving his vision even as his mind disappeared into the fog of someone else’s subconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY TO LEAVE YOU GUYS WITHOUT PHOBOS’ MEMORY THIS CHAPTER WAS JUST REALLY LONG AND SO I PUT IT IN THE FINAL ONE 😔😔😔
> 
> final chapter up on the 30th!


	4. Chapter 4

Phobos sighed, flicking his wings around the backs of his shoulder blades. Dei was off in some hunting party with his dads, and Phobos was just left at home. By himself. He supposed it was what he got for being rude to the hunting manager earlier, but honestly, how was he supposed to know that laughing at the instructor’s dumb voice would get him kicked out? It really wasn’t fair.

He pouted and leaned back against the tree behind him. Its bark was carved with so many little inscriptions from his brother. Deimos didn’t have claws like Phobos, but he did have a small, sharp dagger he used to carve messages into the rough log. Phobos had always preferred a good sword to that kind of thing, but he was proud of his younger brother for finding something that fit him. 

But Dei wasn’t here now, and the tree only held past messages, nothing new or interesting at all. Phobos fiddled with the clasp on the pendant at his throat. Sitting by himself was  _ boring.  _ He glanced down at the lush green carpet below his message tree. 

He knew he wasn’t supposed to go down there. He knew  _ why _ , too. But all that did was make him want to go even more,  _ especially  _ now that he was bored. His dads would never even know, and neither would the leviathans. He’d just find something cool and be right back up, no time taken at all. Dei would help him appraise it later, and all would be well. It’d be a gift. 

He looked over his shoulder, glancing over to make sure nobody was watching. He knew that the majority of his small flock would be on that hunting trip (they really needed food), but a little extra caution never hurt anyone. That sentiment was ironic considering what he was about to do with that extra caution. He tried not to think about the fact that if nobody was here, nobody could help him get away if things went south.

He spread his wings, stretching them out against his sides, and let go of the branch he was holding onto. With a beat of his wings, he was gently floating down to the forest floor, feet landing as softly as they could against the squishy ground. The moss on the damp floor made it slightly slippery, a bit of a challenge to navigate across, but that was alright. It muffled the noise of his footsteps, which was good if he didn’t want the leviathans taking notice.

Something glistened from under a tree, grabbing his attention like a fish on a hook. It was very shiny from how easily it reflected the minimal sunlight here in the forest floor. Dei would  _ love  _ it. 

As he got closer, he realized this shiny thing was a lot larger than he’d assumed. He thought it was a necklace at first, and then as he’d gotten a better look, maybe a figure, but no— this thing was almost the size of him. It looked like a person encased in a shiny silver coating. He squinted, making out shapes and patterns in the thing’s dull eyes. Phobos had a feeling this thing was supposed to be something other, something  _ more  _ than what it was showing right now, but its eyes remained just as dark and empty as before.

A noise came crashing from behind him. Phobos jumped and spun on his heels, all caution of sound forgotten for a moment. 

Scales poked from the brush, each bigger than his hand. Big, bulbous yellow eyes stared straight into wide pink and blue irises. They were hungry. Fangs the size of Phobos’ wings in length came into view as he gaped, shaking and rooted to the spot at the sight of the leviathan unfolding before him. It yawned, jaws opened wide. 

Phobos could see the clearing he’d entered the forest from, he could see the light streaming down from the open sky. All he needed was to get there, to run, to  _ leave— _ but getting down here was easier than going up. Flying back to the trees would take minutes at least, minutes that he realized he definitely didn’t have as the thing coiled lazily, knowing that he couldn’t run. He took in a shaky breath and silently whispered a prayer to the gods that if he made it out of here, he’d never willingly go to the forest floor again. He didn’t even know how a leviathan had found him this fast! They were supposed to be way more obvious, more noise and spectacle. This one had almost just appeared out of thin air.

He opened his wings and pulled up as the leviathan lunged for him. He knew it wasn’t enough time— he hadn’t even been able to get off the ground yet. His feet still met the moss on the floor. Phobos squeezed his eyes shut as the fangs that were so much longer than his wings drew closer and whispered a quiet apology to his family.

The impact never came, though a loud, sickening snap did. His eyes flew open, wide as the pendant on his neck, to see the shiny person thing with a fang embedded in its arm. Red light cut through the darkness of the forest, but all Phobos could see was the yellow eyes as they stared at him, as the fang broke off from the metal, and as the world skipped and went still.

  
  





Havve jerked up, limbs full of panic, simulated breath coming hot and quick. The vision of that giant thing’s scales, its fangs (it had buried those in his arm _ ,  _ in his  _ arm _ ) the way it bore down on a young Phobos— everything felt utterly  _ wrong, _ as if one giant error message was going to fill his vision for the rest of his time here. 

“Well, that was disappointing,” Red’s voice said, grating on his already frayed nerves. He couldn’t find it in himself to respond. “I needed that pendant.”

After another beat of silence, Red stamped their foot. “Havve Hogan! You did not get me that aurora.”

“Too bad,” Havve managed through sharp breaths. 

“Yes,” they said, “it is. Because now I’ll just have to take it.”

Havve’s head shot up. He didn’t think it was possible to feel any more panic than he already had in his system, but that assumption was immediately proven wrong as another error message popped up. He dismissed it and stood, terrified. “What?”

Red didn’t listen to him. They moved forward, towards Phobos’ sleeping form. Their earlier tendrils of light were still in place. They laid a hand on one of the tendrils, and the room went white, a beautiful constellation of memories and stars plastered on the ceiling. Red clicked their tongue, surveying the dancing projections like a menu at a restaurant, giggling all the while. 

Havve… had no idea what to do. This whole time, he’d been told what to do, where to go, collect this thing, free that person. He almost couldn’t believe he’d been left alone, finally, but at the worst possible time. He wanted this to be the epic moment where he did something against his captor and freed his friends, but the realistic, self-preserving part of his mind said clearly that to act now was to die. He would have to wait for his moment to strike, here, or risk being trapped like his friends. Red hadn’t trapped him because they wanted a task done. Once that task was finished, if he stepped out of line, he was royally fucked.

He winced as Phobos stirred, clearly not enjoying Red’s intrusion on his mind. Red pouted. “Lord Phobos, you are such a baby.”

They grabbed the light encircling Havve’s friend and pulled. It instantly pooled in their hands, and Phobos shuddered, going still again. The memories on the walls vanished. Horror filled Havve’s wires, but he still had to watch. Forced to watch as Phobos’ cocoon of sand dissolved and he lay on the floor, unstirring. He was too far away to check if he was breathing. His heart hammered in perfect time as always, he knew that, but something small and human in his mind swore it was racing faster and faster the longer his friends stayed trapped.

_ Something _ needed to happen. He just wasn’t sure  _ when. _

Red laughed. There was something different about the way the sound moved. More desperate, more grounded, ever so slightly. “Seems like little red riding hood fell victim to the wolf.”

Blue, green, and white danced across Havve’s vision as the lights in Red’s hands pooled across the ceiling. His vision went a blurry gray for a blessed moment, a final moment of peace before the storm he knew was coming. He managed to sit up, to glance over at Phobos, to check on his friends’ stasis, but then the moment was over.

The storm had arrived.




When he woke again, he thought that the damn temple was gone. He’d thought that Red had simply left him there. It was just so  _ quiet _ ; nothing breathing, nothing moving, nothing living. His sensors adjusted, tacking themselves onto any movement in the vicinity. There had to be  _ something. _

And there it was.

Shadows made of burning light, shining like gossamer. Transparent in the temple’s walls. Red stood among them, finally calmed. They looked up at Havve, and he was shocked to see tears in their terrifying eyes.

That was when Havve realized it— The shadows looked like Red. Gray skin, the same style of clothing, the claws, though none of them had any mottling like Red did. 

“Your… your people?”

“Home,” they said simply. “my home.”

“How…?”

“Made a deal with the Zone, Havve Hogan. I took their pasts and intend to feed the desert with them. In exchange it gave me my own.”

“That’s— you can’t seriously think that’ll work. The Zone is  _ ruthless,  _ it’d just as soon eat you up as it would my friends—“

“Do not take me for a fool,” Red said sharply. “I know. I know that. I do. But as long as I have them, I will be safe.”

“What happened to them?” The shadows were everywhere, painting the walls, parading across the temple’s grandiose floors. There were so  _ many _ . How did they all end up here?

Red’s face softened, forming something blurry under their eyes. “They… a darkness swept over our land. We did not have enough light to stop it.” For the first time, their voice didn’t sound paper-thin and airy. It was grounded and hoarse, as if they’d never wanted to acknowledge this to someone else. Havve really wasn’t sure why they were sharing this at all, especially with him. Their maniacal smile crept back. “But now, I’ve found that light. It’s with them again. Everything is finally right.”

Havve shook his head. He knew that look on their face, the wistful eyes, the set of the jaw that showed determination, crushing coal into diamonds from the pressure. He’d seen it on Sung, he’d seen it on Phobos. He’d seen that look on survivors, on regretful nights, on the darkness that plagued his friends on especially hard days. He didn’t want to break Red’s hope, the peace they seemed to finally have found, but he knew that he had to, if his friends were to come back to the ship with him. If they’d ever wake up.

A quick glance over to the sleeping forms in the cocoons steeled his resolve. “Red— you know that’s not true. They’re gone,” Havve said softly.

Red’s head snapped up, but they still looked calm. Their smile was plastered on, but their eyes were still, dark. “I fixed it. They’re back.”

“No,” Havve soothed. “They’re still out in the stars, living among the lights. The sooner you accept that, the less it’ll hurt to know.”

Red’s smile slipped, dissolving into a slight frown. Their lip trembled. “No— no, they’re here— I spent so long getting this plan together, so long finding the right lights— so many memories, so many thoughts, Havve Hogan, you don’t understand— I have to carry their memories, their thoughts— their dying breaths, their wishes—  _ Havve you don’t understand— _ “ 

Havve flinched, surprised at the sudden flood of emotion from the smaller alien. Suddenly they were panicking, words spilling out as if they couldn’t quite bring themself to stop. It hit Havve that he didn’t know if they’d done this kind of trap before, performed this kind of song and dance. Judging by the way they spoke, they had. They sounded tired and terrified of failing, and he could only watch and wonder how many people and their lives had fallen to this desperate quest. This legacy carried on sticks and one person’s spine.

“Red… I…” Havve was at a loss for words. Red had begun to quietly sob into their legs, pulled up to their forehead. Their hands reached out desperately for the shadows of light moving before them, but they passed through the shadows, not making contact. Red didn’t seem to notice.

They didn’t say anything more. Havve didn’t know what to do. He was sure Sung would have something to say, something to do or help the crying alien in front of him, but Havve was about as useless as scrap metal when it came to comfort. He felt incredibly awkward, limbs shifting and rearranging with quiet clanks in a display of the little nervous energy he still had left in his remaining humanity.

“I know they’ve done the same.”

Havve tilted his head. Not judging, just confused. “What do you mean?”

Red’s hand finally let go of the shade they were trying to grasp. It went to point at Phobos, still unconscious, and then to Sung. “Their homes. I could see them.”

Ah. Havve knew that neither of his friends’ planets had survived with them. He nodded, silently showing Red that they didn’t need to keep talking.

Although, while Red was distracted… he could take his friends and run. He could grab them and get out while Red stayed with their home.

His brain carefully constructed a plan, which wasn’t hard, since Red didn’t seem to be moving much right now. They looked away from him, staring at a particular shade. It was a pale green, big wide blue eyes shining through its ghostly skin. The way Red’s eyes searched its form made Havve feel like an intruder, but he could work with this. “Who is that?”

There was a long silence, but Red didn’t look over at him. He took that as a sign to begin his plan, carefully getting up from his spot on the floor, limbs moving more fluidly and quietly than they had in years. He was halfway over to Phobos’ unconscious form when Red’s voice croaked a quiet response. “Just… someone. My… my mother.”

Havve didn’t need to fake the sympathy in his voice. “I see.” He didn’t say he was sorry. Something told him Red had heard that enough. “What kind of things did you do with her?”

Whenever Sung seemed particularly upset or hung up about something, especially his homeworld, Havve would ask him about positive memories. He knew that here, memories were even more powerful than usual, and as he’d predicted, the shades in front of Red flickered like candles before melting into a projection, not unlike the one into Phobos’ mind he had seen earlier.

The green shade was dancing. Havve almost forgot his plan just to watch Red’s mother move. It was ethereal. Red seemed entranced, weakly tracing their mother’s movements with an arm in the air. They still weren’t looking at him. “She liked to dance. She tried to teach me how, but I was never as flawless as her. She said once I grew up, I’d get there. I tried to practice by myself, but she… she’d gone. I don’t think I’ll be as good as her, even when I’m grown up.”

Havve had snapped out of his momentary shock and crept to Phobos, his hand hovering over his friend’s body. The reality of what Red had just said hit him like a freight train.

Red was still a  _ child.  _ At the very least, they were so young they didn’t consider themself grown up. Suddenly their small stature and strangely bubbly mannerisms made sense. They were a kid, thrust into a situation in which they had to rapidly mature into something they weren’t ready to be yet. Havve felt something in his chest tighten, something human, at the realization that he was seeing a scared child desperately bargain for the lives of their people with an age-old desert that had outsmarted millions.

But despite this, he couldn’t just leave his friends and give himself up to the very place that had broken his mind in the first place. The same place that had fear clutching at his throat every time he caught sight of the red sands. 

He grabbed Phobos’ head, sliding his hands under his body to pick him up. Immediately the ground began to shake, slightly, yet very noticeable.

Red’s head snapped around to where he was standing, Phobos clutched in his hands. Their eyes were round as plates in their head, and the illusion behind them clicked off like someone had cut the power on it. Havve realized they had sheer  _ terror  _ in their eyes, a caged animal’s expression. “What have you  _ done,  _ Havve Hogan?”

The world snapped around him, twisting and twirling like he was going to be sick. The temple’s grandiose rooms and ceilings and walls vanished into thin air, the sand holding Meouch and Sung captive with them. Havve would have celebrated that fact if he wasn’t immediately preoccupied with the fact that the desert was  _ moving. _

Of  _ course.  _ Of course. Red had made a deal with the Zone. Havve taking Phobos would deny the Zone of a soul it desperately wanted. Of  _ course _ it would fight back like this.

He glanced over to Meouch and Sung, who were just starting to wake up. Red was still frozen in horror, tears welling up in their eyes as they watched. Havve could feel the sands of time clutching and grasping at his legs. At any moment they could consume him, or the ship, or his friends. They had to get  _ out. _

“MEOUCH! SUNG! GET UP!” He yelled, desperation edging every word. Red was muttering something, sounding broken and shell-shocked, and Havve could feel something dangerously close to pity build in his chest. 

Meouch yelped, which was good. It meant he wasn’t dead yet. “TAKE SUNG TO THE SHIP,” Havve called, hefting Phobos in his arms, “I’LL MEET YOU TWO THERE!”

Meouch didn’t hesitate. Sung was waking up now too, but the sands below their feet were churning, faster and faster. Havve wasn’t sure how long they would be able to stay on the Zone before they were swallowed. 

He took a hard step forward, wading his way through the turbulent planet. Meouch and Sung had reached the ship. They were both more lightfooted than he was, since Havve was made of metal and weighed something around a billion pounds. Havve just wished Phobos would wake up. Carrying him was another hindrance, another block in their progress out of this hell.

His next step went straight through the ground, and before he could even react, he was face-deep in the sand, sediments closing in above his head. A voice he’d hoped to never hear again buzzed in the back of his brain, triumphant.

_ there you are my little one you have come back you will stay and you have brought more food for me your friends will not survive _

_ Stop it, _ Havve thought, clutching Phobos tighter.  _ Get out of my head. _

_ he cannot breathe he will slip soon you will hold him as he dies _

_ I said,  _ get OUT. 

Havve frantically tried to kick to the surface, hoping he sounded more determined than he was. Deep down he knew it wasn’t enough to fool the Zone, but it still made him feel a little better about the hopeless situation he’d just entered. 

Phobos’ body was  _ definitely  _ a road block here. He couldn’t use his arms or he’d drop Phobos, and that was not an option. The Zone would claim him even faster if he dared let go. 

Something in him was ready to give. There was no way they’d make it out on their own. If he dropped Phobos, then he’d have a chance, but he’d rather die than let that happen. He just hoped Meouch and Sung would take off without him.

_ there you are there you are there you are there you are  _

_ Shut  _ up.

And then, there was light, everywhere. There was blues and greens and whites and he jumped as he realized what those colors meant.

Red was helping him.

_ go,  _ they seemed to say.  _ and i’m sorry. _

_ You can come with us,  _ Havve responded, tilting his head.  _ We could help. _

_ my home is here. my memories. i cannot leave, havve hogan. _

_ But, you’re so young— _

_ this is what i choose. leave. _

_...Thank you. _

—And then he was off, above the sands. hard and warm circles of light forming under his feet, the Zone crashing at him furiously, Phobos cradled in his arms—

He tore open the door of the ship, spilling Phobos onto the ground. He didn’t need to say anything before Meouch set the launch. They were off before the Zone could grasp them again, though Havve could still feel the pressure of the sand on his face, the rage and despair surrounding him on every side, the maliciously calm buzzing of the Zone’s collective voice.

Most of all, he remembered a small alien, full of melancholy and terrifying laughs. Too grown for their size. Too old for their dancing. 

He swore he could hear a little laugh and a whisper of a children’s tale as they sped away from the Zone.




Sung smiled, high on adrenaline and terror from whatever just happened. He was sure he’d get an explanation soon. For now it was just breathless fear, confusion, and the vague familiarity of life and death situations powering his actions.

“Well, um… I may have been wrong about that one. No more field trips for a while.”

Havve responded by letting out a gargantuan sigh and falling straight backwards, not even bothering to catch himself. Sung guessed he was tired, because  _ all  _ of them were. He could see Meouch’s slow blinks, he could feel his own jittery terror giving way to a huge crash, and hell, Phobos was still passed out on the ground.

He needed a nap, and for once, he hoped he didn’t have any dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOOO BOY IT’S DONE! this took SO MUCH time to make and i’m so glad it’s done! thanks as always to the epic mods of the 2020 twrp big bang event— you’re all so cool! sorry that this last chapter was a little shorter and way more fast paced, but i hope you still enjoyed nonetheless. thank you so much for reading, it means the world to me!


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